I said my piece on this topic last week, but over at Fangraphs, Jeff Sullivan has an interesting take on the never-dying controversy over why must Joey Votto walk so much???
You really should go over and read the entire piece, as it well-reasoned. Plus, it has actual graphs! In the end, however, Sullivan’s conclusion was nearly identical to mine:
There are ways that Joey Votto could be a better baseball player, because he isn’t perfect. There have been pitches hes taken with runners in scoring position that he probably could’ve hit. Likewise, with runners in scoring position, there have been pitches Brandon Phillips shouldn’t have swung at. This is just who Votto is, and there’s little sense in complaining about an elite player when hes performing at an elite level. There are people who don’t particularly care for Votto’s patience. There is a person with a .435 OBP and a 159 wRC+. One of those is Joey Votto. Defer to the guy who reaches base all the time. He probably has the hitting thing figured out.
Yes, he does.